


Mad Girl

by thefudge



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: AU, Creepyshipping, Disturbing Content, F/F, F/M, Older Man/Younger Woman, Petyr/Sansa Week, some light bdsm later, sort of a request
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-05-28
Updated: 2014-10-06
Packaged: 2018-01-26 22:40:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Underage
Chapters: 5
Words: 9,397
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1705169
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thefudge/pseuds/thefudge
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Petyr Baelish is a High Lord and Sansa, only a common whore. Prompt taken from emperorirene.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Normally, this would not fall upon the Master of Coin.

He had long ago ceased to put on airs of deference with guests. But this was a special case; a fastidious, hot-blooded Prince. High stakes and few minds who could settle them.

Oberyn Martell. His name had a fine dread to it. All naysay, of course, but Petyr was not about to dismantle the fanciful tales. Oberyn liked his reputation to be cruel and exotic in one breath.

_No one must know I am secretly more boring than I appear._

Petyr smiled into his wine. It was the opposite with him.

* * *

 

“Our girls are too thin, my Lord. He won’t like that. He always complains they look starved.”

The Master of Coin did not own brothels. As High Lord the notion was forbidden to him. Which did not prevent him, of course. He was lucky he had found Ros. She was his bridge into the vast, indifferent and ever-changing world of lowborns, ladder-climbers and would-be-prophets. A world he craved, if only because it provided oblivion.

“Some are, I suppose,” Petyr commented idly, as he turned the yellow leaf gently. His finger ran down the numbers with impressive speed. Ros liked to watch him count.

“I could fetch some fat ones from Flea Bottom, but we would need two days to scrub off the dirt. Not to mention, we'd condemn Prince Oberyn to an untimely death.”

Lord Baelish turned another leaf and smiled. Ros minced her words so carefully, only to hide her common whorish origins. He liked her for it. But she was wrong, of course. The more she tried to be the lady, the more she sank deeper into the mud. 

“I suppose, for this occasion, we might call on our good friends, the Tyrells. They are just as desirous to please the Prince. Maybe more.”

Ros bent forward. “They have a shipment coming from the North. You think it will do?”

“The North is wild and terrifying to the Southerners. They want remoteness. The closer to the Wall, the better.”

* * *

 

Olenna laughed as she told him the tale.

“Oh, it was terribly ridiculous. This young thing, barely older than fourteen, grabbed the baby and ran away with it. She wanted to keep it for herself. When the mother came for it, she refused to give it back. He was going to be sold of course, the poor little one. So, she said she wasn’t going to give it back. Just like that.”

Petyr leaned back into his chair and let the breeze coming from the windows cool his face. Olenna Tyrell loved to tell absent tales of some bygone wit. Today he found it rather boring.

“Do not keep me in suspense, my Lady.”

“Well, it’s all rather disappointing. The mother slapped her about a bit and took the baby away. I could still see the red imprint on her cheek. I asked her why she’d been hit, because I don’t tolerate that, as a rule. And she told me she took the baby from the mother. Rather curious, don’t you think?”

“Rather.”

“In any case, you’ll be happy with my choices. Handpicked them myself. Dornish gold should fly on their backs.”

“I will need to see them beforehand, my Lady.”

“Of course, of course. You’ll recognize the mad girl with the baby. Her face is still red. Northerner, through and through.”

* * *

 

They each walked on their tiptoes, because the floor was cold. Odd that they felt warm elsewhere. Their naked bodies looked the same: plump, robust, weather-beaten. Like quinces which have been squeezed of all life, but still retained the impression of fullness, the sickly perfume.

Ros pushed back their heads and spread their legs.

Petyr rose. He prodded with a surgeon’s precision between their thighs. Some winced. Others cried gently.

There was no girl with a red face.

* * *

 

Margaery Tyrell favored the godswood for walks, not prayer. She had never bent her knees once in her life and she was not going to start now. But the godswood was all comfort and secrecy. It was the only place where she could look upon her new acquisition and feel unbridled by curious stares.

The Northern girl possessed a harsh, unattractive beauty. She was stone personified.

 _No, not stone. Ivory. Or steel_ , Margaery thought.

She said little, but when she was asked, her voice was clear, childlike, but deathly. There was no pretence in her blue eyes. No innocence either, but the Northern girl had been born without innocence.

Margaery did not want to know her horrors. She only smiled and asked her to part her pretty copper hair.

“Tell me, did you really take that baby away?”

* * *

 

After so much wine and lemon cake, she felt she could sleep for an eternity. But she fought the instinct to close her eyelids because it was not safe to live in the dark. Margaery was lunching on her left breast. Sansa looked up at the sky.

There were no clouds in King's Landing. She was lying naked under a naked sky. They were one, the sky and she.

Eventually, her mistress rose and wiped her mouth. Sharp teeth had left marks around her nipple. 

“Don’t go anywhere, little wildling. I am going to fetch us more wine.”

Sansa was quiet, at first. But then, she remembered she had to keep on living.

“No, m’Lady. Let me do that for you.”

Margaery puckered her lips and kissed her at the corner of her mouth.

“Bring the sweet kind.”

* * *

 

The short walk from the laden table on the terrace and the woman with the lustful eyes in the woods was a respite. She would gladly be a wine carrier for the rest of her life, if it meant walking up and down this path eternally, with no other purpose or rhyme.

Continuous stupor, that was all she needed.

She first saw the eyes. Two arrow slits, frozen lakes of deep green.

She did not drop the wine, but she made a hasty bow and slipped some on her dress. The red stain looked horrid on the blue gown.

For the first time since the fire of Winterfell, she felt blood in her cheeks.

This was a Lord, she could tell.

“Beg pardon, m’Lord.”

The words were spat out full of shame, because she could still feel the mistress’ mouth on her breast.

The man’s doublet caught her eye. She had seen nothing prettier so far. A strange design of mockingbirds.

She bowed again, but a hand shot up when she wanted to move past him.

Sansa was not startled. Many hands had caught her before.

He pulled her to him. The frozen lakes surveyed her with strange horror. They were not lustful, like Margaery’s. They searched her with anger, almost as if she had committed a terrible crime.

She almost shrieked when his fingers hovered over her face. But the thumb was as gentle as a feather.

He touched her cheek.

She wondered if he could still see the red mark. It had not turned purple yet. 

“Whose are you?”

His words were a shock. Rasped and ancient, much older than the man speaking.

“I –”

“ _Whose_ are you?”

“M-Margaery Tyrell's, m’Lord.”

His lips thinned for a moment. Turned white. Anger again. But then, a curious glimmer of a smile.

“No, sweetling.”

“No?” she echoed, confused.

“No.”

When he let go of her, she did not step back, because he seemed to want to tell her more, and she was wary of displeasing the man and his mockingbirds.

But he stepped around her like a shadow and dissolved around a corner.

* * *

 

“Margaery won’t be pleased, my Lord.”

Petyr closed the door rather forcefully. He glared at her. Ros flinched. A man like him showed displeasure so rarely, it was a rude awakening.

“Margaery Tyrell will be pleased, if I say so,” he spoke, his voice full of decorum, but his fists were clenched.

“I see. You are right, my Lord. The Northern girl is more suited for Prince Oberyn’s tastes –”

Lord Baelish walked behind her chair and grabbed its back. His breath was a reproach.

“My Lord?”

“Of course, you realize that one more word out of your mouth will cost you your throat.”

“Yes, my Lord.”

* * *

 

Copper hair. Red mark on her cheek. Mad girl from the North.

Petyr closed his eyes.

It’s as if she had killed Cat and dressed herself in her skin.


	2. Chapter 2

The heat was turning the shadows into molten iron. She felt a cast as heavy as an armour on her shoulders. No matter how she moved, it was there, on her back.

Disrobing would have been the only relief, but she clung to the battered gown with all her might.

Her stomach was growling. She was going to lurch soon. The woman with the red mouth had given her something to drink, something stinking of cold beds and ale.

_Gods, I am going to die._

The thought came to her more like a reminder, not a pressing concern.

A small door opened in front of her and a small man came through.

He was no longer wearing mockingbirds. His suit was black and tight to the chest. It gleamed where the silver linings met his wrists. She noted that his neck was covered again. It was always covered.

He stepped inside the room as if he’d found it by chance.

Sansa did not understand why they needed to do this alone. She did not understand why it needed to be done at all.

No one wanted to speak with whores.

* * *

 

“Come, sweetling. Sit closer,” he beckoned. She was ready to take flight, the way she was sitting on the edge of the ottoman, with so much dread in her eyes that it made him wonder for how long she had been servicing the desires of the unworthy.

She was quick to school her features into polite submissiveness. She did not smile, even when he did. Her face was a blank canvass, underneath which secret miseries crawled.

“Tell me your name. Tell me where you come from. Let me hear you speak.”

She nodded her head feebly, opened her mouth once, twice and then wretched all over his shoes.

* * *

 

“I – I am so, so dreadfully s-sorry, my Lord.”

Sansa watched in horror as the man took out a handkerchief and started dabbing at his boots. His face was still a mask of decorum, but his eyebrows were knit and his mouth was not smiling anymore.

“Not to worry, sweetling. Not to worry.”

“P-Please, let me.”

She knelt down and, grabbing one end of her dress, she began scrubbing his boots vigorously.

She could not see his face, but she knew he was watching, waiting.

She could feel the light shift in the air where his hand almost touched her hair.

“You shouldn’t have done that,” he said quietly.

Head still bowed, she nodded in remorse. “I know, my Lord, I got sick from the heat, but –”

“ _No_.”

Then his hand really was in her hair and she ceased all movement. She closed her eyes. She knew what would happen. He would pull, hard, and he’d drag her across the floor, make her taste her own vomit.

Instead, she felt a light, feather touch. Not a caress, not a punishment.

He only tugged gently, so that her face was lifted to him. Her eyes, water pools cemented with dry tears, saw a darkness so opaque in his that she forgot he was talking.

“You should not have soiled your clothes. You must _never_ do that again.”

Sansa nodded, transfixed. She had no idea what he had said.

* * *

 

Petyr let go of her hair. It was wet and dirty. He clenched his fist, revelling in the feeling. He abhorred such filth normally, but he was anticipating the moment when all this dirt would leave her body. When her skin would be alabaster white and her hair blood on snow. He could see her rise from a steaming vat. He could see the grime gliding down her thighs.

“No matter. The garment will be burned. You’ll only wear what I choose for you from now on.”

Her mien, though still muted, seemed to struggle to understand. She lifted her eyebrows and mouthed a single word:

“Burned?”

* * *

 

The fires. So many fires. No amount of snow could put them out. She stuffed the white fluff in her mouth and fell to sleep in ice, only to wake up to fires.

Everywhere, flames.

The man in front of her was going to burn her, along with her dress.

“Do you know now _whose_ you are?”

He was expecting an answer. His mouth curved up in a half-moon smirk. It turned his face ugly and warm. She felt the armour on her shoulders seeping into her bones and squeezing her throat. She had seen Margaery smirk so many times, for so many things. That girl rarely smiled.

But _he_ was going to burn her dress.

“Yes, my Lord.”

* * *

 

“I have paid your weight in gold. You will never have to work a day in your life. _Unless_ you do this again.”

He watched her chest rise and fall with the unexpected shock of his words. He wondered why she was surprised. _Why_ else would he come and see her in person if not to take her away?

“No possession of mine will bow down to wipe someone’s shit. Not even her own. You will rise and act according to your new station.”

He did not have to snatch her arm. She stood on her knees, then grabbed one end of the table and lifted herself up. She did not wobble, or falter.

She stood before him, smelling of wretch.

“May I ask why, my Lord?”

“Why _what_?”

“Why you have bought me.”

Petyr had the sudden urge to grab her chin and cut the skin of her cheeks to see if there was another face, hiding underneath. He would have liked to tell her she was a thief, a little murderer who had eaten the soul of a dead woman.

“No. You may not.”

* * *

 

Sansa watched him with curiosity. He seemed to be restraining himself at every turn. She had learned by now to catch men’s impulses in their flight. He wanted to touch her, but did his best not to. She was his now, from what had been said. What was stopping him?

Whatever it was, she was glad for it.

“What shall I call you?”

“Alayne. They call me Alayne,” she offered willingly. The name rolled off her lips with practiced ease.

“Alayne. Is that your true name?”

“No.” She had never found it necessary to say yes. Yet she saw it still startled him. Other girls liked to say “I am whoever you want me to be. My name is the name you give me.” But she had never quite mastered this self-effacement. It was generosity, to make yourself nameless. It was gluttony to have two.

* * *

 

“Well?”

“That is, my Lord, I named myself Alayne.”

“You named yourself?”

It was nothing new. Lowborns whose fathers and mothers had been swallowed by the realm and spat out in pieces, crafted all sorts of masks and mirrors for themselves. But she did not have the air of an inventor.

“I needed to. For a long time, I was nameless. I had to give myself a name.”

“Why did you choose this one, then?”

“I don’t know, my Lord.”

Petyr felt she was hiding something more than a face underneath her skin.

“Try better.”

He saw her fingers pulling and knotting together as she smoothed down her dirty gown.

“I - I thought it sounded pretty.”

“Pretty?”

“Like in the stories, my Lord.”

“Have you heard a great deal of those?”

“No. Only this one.”

* * *

 

She could see he was not satisfied with her replies. She could see her future, too, like a pale curtain being pulled aside to let the white sun in. She saw herself sitting on cushions and waiting, with her hands and feet bound together. She would be stared at. She would be wondered at. He would probably have her likeness taken. They all wanted a taste of snow, a taste of the North. They wanted to catch the North in its flight. Trap it in colours and jewels.

She would sit there in the middle and hope that her face inspired reveries of wildlings and giants and wargs.

And then the future was here, now.

She blinked and she was no longer on the wrong side of town.

She had no recollection of how she had arrived in the house with fountains and portcullis.

But she was here.

* * *

 

He was going to keep her away from the men and women with wine on their breaths. In time, their imprints would fade from her skin. In time, she would be newly born. No one else would know she existed. And if no one else knew of her life, no one else could take it.

She would stay in her room and he would think of her there, a living, breathing childhood memory.

That was all he could afford.

He wrote down her name in his books. He wrote down the sum he had paid for her head. Everything had to be accounted for.

A painful substitute.

_Cat. Alayne._

He forged them together in his mind.

_Catalayne. Catelyn._

A shudder went through him. Fear was about to claw its way in his heart. Dread, absolute dread.

He closed his books.

Would he let the memory live on, or would he kill her in her sleep?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to everyone for the feedback and the kudos :) let me know what you think.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fair warning; this chapter is pretty disturbing. This story gets creepy fast and not in the way you'd expect. Although, also in the way you'd expect.

He kept birds. There was a special hothouse filled with birds of all colours and ranges. Their song was shrill and wild, not at all tame as she expected.

She sat there in the morning, trying to understand what they were saying. She lifted her finger from time to time, hoping that one might fly down to her. Their beaks glistened, but they never did.

She walked along the galleries in the afternoon. They surveyed a small pond surrounded by shrubbery. She hoisted her new dress up and walked barefoot to the pond. She sat on the banks and felt a tickling under her feet. So many living things squirmed in the damp soil. She had not seen the portcullis and fountains since the first day she had arrived. She was confined to the nether regions of the house.

Sometimes, she thought she saw icicles in the trees. She would stand on her toes and raise her fingers and touch an empty place. But her thumbs were still frozen anyway.

This was the rhythm for a while, but the servants saw how she sleepwalked through every day. So the septa of the house thought it was high time she did her own part. They never talked. She only silently gave Sansa chores. The girl complied. She sewed and washed and helped in the kitchens. Yet she sleepwalked still.

She almost never saw him. He came and went like the breeze easing in from the sea and she only caught glimpses of a robe here and there. She was relieved, but mostly curious.

Still, she did not grow very bored.

You could not grow bored after snows and fires.

* * *

 

 

The din of voices savaged his eardrums. The chatter of men swelled and heaved like a torrent of flies. The Red Keep was a blazing furnace. He could see everyone's sweat dancing on their brows. And the Queen Regent was demanding his attention.

“Lord Baelish, Lady Olenna tells me she and her daughter have set their sights on you to be the host of the engagement feast.”

“Yes, Lady Olenna has expressed a wish.”

“You sound reluctant.”

“Not reluctant, only obsequious. My home is open to all, but I fear it is not as grand as her Ladyship wants.”

“Nonsense. It has no match in King's Landing, except for the Red Keep, of course.”

“It may not have a match in King's Landing, but it stands in shadow in Highgarden.”

The Queen Regent smirked, delighted with the small irony. “Well, good thing we're not in Highgarden.”

Still, he would rather it had not been taken as an irony. He had no desire to spend any more than he already _had_ on the future nuptials of the young King and Queen. Everyone knew his investment in the wedding was large. To be burdened with this too was no sign of appreciation. This was Margaery Tyrell's revenge for having taken her toy.

“Will you be able to accommodate Prince Oberyn too for the occasion?”

“I must. He is an old friend, after all.”

* * *

 

Sansa was delivered the news that there would be festivities not by words but by movements. The stewards worked with more diligence. The pantries were open wide and the young of animals were brought to the slaughter. The servant girls would not say much, but she gathered there would be a union between a great lord and a great lady. She was sitting one afternoon in front of a large basket full of potatoes, contemplating who Lord Baelish's chosen bride might be. She was peeling each potato slowly, watching the brown skin shrink and turn into soft rondelles in her lap, when the doors to the kitchen were pulled open and tall young woman dressed in red veils walked in proudly and started speaking like the lady of the house. Her complexion resembled ripe quinces.

“My Prince wishes for something sweet.”

“My lady, you should not have troubled to come here. We would have come to you,” one of the servants offered quickly.

“You already did. You brought enough fruit and cake to feed all of Dorne. But I am searching for something else.”

Sansa kept her head down and continued peeling.

“You, over there,” she heard the woman say. “What's your name?”

“Jeyne, m'lady.”

“Jeyne, I like it. Come with me. Let's see, who else?”

The rondelles fell at her feet. Sansa pressed the knife into the yellow meat and waited.

“Ah, you'll have to do for now, Jeyne.”

* * *

 

The evenings were cold and not every corner of her room was safe. She walked from wall to wall until her legs were too weak. She wanted thread and needle, she wanted a kitchen broom, she wanted to occupy her hands and body and mind. As such, she kept fiddling with her hair, pulling soft strands.

She ate two, then spat them out. She was not hungry, she only wanted to chew.

When dawn broke, she leaped out of the room towards the pond. She sank her hands in the cold water. The frost on the thumbs was almost melting.

Then she saw Jeyne crying behind a shrubbery.

“What happened?”

“A-Alayne. Go away, please.”

“Why are you crying? Did they hurt you?”

“N-no...it was good. I liked it. I don't know why I'm crying.”

Sansa put an arm on her back.

“You're shivering.”

“That woman and that man...they're not from here. They put me down and stuck their fingers inside me.”

Sansa's face hardened.

“Don't worry. They won't do it again.”

* * *

He had not seen her in a month. She could be dead, for all he knew. His fair-haired boy told him that she was alive and well. The servants weren't very fond of her, because her eyes were large and when she spoke her voice came out rough and mean. They did not understand why she was there.

“Septa has put her to work.”

“Work? What kind of work?”

“She helps around the house.”

Petyr's hand trembled over the stone basin. He washed his fingers, watching the ink turn the water blue. He was alone in this horrid affair. He had bought her and now – now he did not know what to do. He could not tell them she was meant to be a painting. An object of profane, but distant admiration. He felt sick at the thought of Cat-Alayne plucking the feathers off a dead chicken. But what would he do with her? What would be her purpose, in the eyes of the world? A high lord could afford to keep trinkets, but they had to be trinkets. The world never spoke ill of a man who indulged, but they spoke ill of a man who did _not_.

* * *

Prince Oberyn was not impressed with Jeyne anymore.

“Why does she keep crying when we offer her pleasure? Are these girls so afraid of their own bodies?”

“I don't know, my love. Lord Baelish is a stiff. He keeps them all starched and aproned. But there's this wild little thing waiting outside our door. I think she wants to be seen,” Ellaria said with a smirk.

“Any good?”

“Redhead, with tits of firm brass. I told her she could get in trouble.”

“So much the better.”

They let her in. Sansa wobbled with a tray laden with grapes.

“You can put them over there with the rest.”

Oberyn stood up and circled her.

“You are a Northerner. Fine Northerner, too. You're not one of Tyrell's girls, are you? I've grown tired of them, I confess."

Sansa shrugged. “I won't cry. I like pleasure.”

Ellaria came from behind her and grabbed her waist, kissing the back of her throat.

“I'm sure you do.”

Sansa let her head fall back on the woman's shoulder. 

They laid her down on the pillows. Sansa opened her mouth and let Ellaria kiss her while Oberyn took care of her dress.

“Oh, she tastes like ice and oranges,” Ellaria moaned. 

Oberyn palmed her thighs until he reached her core. "But she is not cold."

When the kissing became more feverish, Sansa broke away and stood before them on her hands and knees.

“My lord and lady. Lie down,” she beckoned in the same plain voice. There was nothing seductive in it, but it prickled the skin anyway.

The two lovers waited for her caress. She kissed the inside of Ellaria's wrist. A feather kiss. She kissed the back of Oberyn's hand. Another feather kiss. She locked their fingers together, clasped tightly, and she kissed them one by one. Feather kisses. Her palms moved over their skins, rubbing gently, rubbing vigorously, until they turned white and hard. Until they shone. Then she opened her mouth and bit. 

Their frozen thumbs spilled on the carpet. The blood came after.

* * *

 

There was an uproar. Sansa heard them thumping and howling outside her door. They would want her head. She was certain. Nothing else would sate them. She had gone madly into battle and had ruined her chances. She sat on her bed and ate more of her hair, stuffing it in her mouth, shivering.

* * *

 

“Lord Baelish wishes to see you.”

For the first time in a month.

* * *

 

“Will – will they kill me, m'lord?”

Petyr pressed a hand to his forehead. His eyelids fluttered, but he did not open his eyes yet. In the dark, he could contemplate what was to be done. He had nestled a beast, a beast that had eaten Cat's heart. There could be no doubt about it. The beast had found the corpse among the unnamed graves. He did not believe in the North, but the North seemed to believe in him. He should give the beast up and let it be tossed into the river. The Queen Regent would not much care that a Martell lost a finger. But the Tyrells?

He opened his eyes. Last time, she had called him _my lord_. Now she was back to _m'lord._

“What have you done, Alayne?”

“I didn't mean to, I swear, I don't know why it happened. I'm not – I'm not bad. I didn't mean any harm, I swear it! Please believe me!”

Her entire frame was trembling and her eyes pleaded with him, but she still looked unmovable.

“Prince Oberyn does not care for the thumb he lost, but he is furious on account of his mistress.”

Alayne started crying, except she was making no sound. Water trickled down her cheeks.

“I will beg them for forgiveness.”

“They won't take it. They think you're a wildling, one of those who eat flesh beyond the Wall. Are you?”

She shook her head in fear. “No, no, m'lord.”

“You must prove it. Otherwise, they'll have me send you back beyond the Wall.”

Petyr got up. He stood before her and, pulling back his silver-threaded cuffs, revealed his hand.

He held it out for her.

“Go ahead, then. Let's see.”

Alayne stared at his poised fingers in confusion.

“M'lord?”

“Try and bite. If flesh is what you eat.”

Alayne quaked. “I would never -”

“Yes. Now, bite.”

They stood like that for several moments, each waiting for the other to act. Until Alayne slowly opened her mouth. She edged towards him, her lips a breath away from his fingers.

He could see her teeth, flecks of snow.

Then she took his thumb inside her mouth and let her tongue glide over it once, twice. The third time, he felt teeth, but then her lips were pulling back and she was licking the joint. He felt a shiver run down his spine.

Their eyes met. His, onyx black, hers a shade above his.

She seemed startled by her own actions. She swallowed him again and then turned her head away abruptly. His hand fell to the side.

“I – I can't bite,” she said, sniffling. “I don't want to bite.”

“Look at me.”

His wet thumb suddenly raced down her cheek. She could feel her hot saliva on her skin. She suppressed the tremor. So many living things were squirming in the soil. 

“Please, will they send me beyond the Wall?”

Petyr did not answer, only stared at the wet imprint on her cheek. He seemed to understand something about her that frightened her.

"I don't want to bite _you_ ," she finally gave in.

Silence stretched on until the saliva dried on her cheek.

“They tell me you're working in the kitchens.”

“Y-yes?”

“What did I tell you about soiling your clothes?”

“I kept my dress clean. I wanted to be of use.”

“I paid your weight in _gold_.”

Alayne closed her eyes.

“And you'll let the gold go beyond the Wall?”

Petyr smiled, and his smile was fractured into thousand other smiles, some of bitterness, some of secret delight.

“What are you, sweetling?” _What creature dwells inside your body, inside those teeth, inside those eyes?_

Alayne opened her eyes.

“Yours.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for your kudos and comments, they fuel my work. Like I said, this is going to go into some dark, dark places.


	4. Chapter 4

They whispered, of course, that she had eaten babies. That is why she had taken that whore’s newborn. To stew it over a low fire and eat its little toes.

Jeyne would not speak to her. She feared she would be dismissed now, because of this Northern witch. If they met in the hallway, she would spit at the floor. Sansa squared her shoulders and thought the girl was ungrateful.

Ever present was the smell of burnt snow.

When she was given her food, they pushed the plate with the heel of their hands. They were afraid to bare their fingers.

The septa shooed her from her menial chores and told her to stay in her room, at least until the waters settled.

But she wanted to work, so she went on her own and cleaned stairwells and dark corners, places where brooms had never brushed, places where air was stale and worn.

She hid behind pillars and watched the clouds shift in the sky. The pond was undisturbed. As if someone had dropped many weights on the bottom. She could see herself from afar, could see how frightful she looked and she knew she ought to cry, sob, weep. Contort her face in such a way as to give the impression of real life. That was the only way to gain sympathy.

She was afraid, but only afraid that, after all, it was in vain. She had tried to steal away a part of the world and hold it close, hold it tight so that it did not get tarnished. Like with the baby, whose body now flew down a green-lichened canal, all things were meant to decay.

* * *

 

“I will not have her sent back.”

Lady Olenna's frown was bitter and twisted. Her usually smirking mouth dipped down like the fangs of an angry dog. 

“Pardon  _ me _ ?”

“You have heard me quite well. I won't lose an investment.”

“An investment?! That mad bitch has perhaps undone _years_ of good relations with the Martells!”

Petyr scoffed.

“You think our shared interests will suddenly turn to naught simply because a prince lost a few fingers? No, I don't think so.”

“ _You_ might not think so, but I do not have the luxury to hide behind my walls and hope for the best outcome. Highgarden is closer to Dorne, and less protected. What am _I_ to do if they decide one of us must be punished?”

“How would the girl's exile help Highgarden, my Lady?” Petyr asked, bitingly.

“You're right. Public execution is what would help! But I can't have that before the wedding. I am being generous and only telling you to get rid of her. Make her disappear! My kindness will only extend so far!"

Petyr could see the justness of her claim. And for any other whore, he would have done it himself.

“I'm afraid I can't honor that wish.”

“You are walking a fine line, Lord Baelish. A fine line, indeed.”

The veins on his hands. They looked black. He looked at them with detached curiosity.

“Try to follow my thinking, Lady Olenna. If I exile the girl, Prince Oberyn's temper will only be incensed. Isn't it better....to let _him_ punish her instead? It's what he wants, after all.”

Lady Olenna's skirts rustled as she walked around his desk. She came up to him and looked him in the eye.

“Has he said anything to you?”

“He has said _enough_. I trust I know him more than you do. He would like to see to it himself.”

This was a sting to the old woman. Because her intelligence, her resources and her young granddaughter had not managed to secure a place in Dorne's bosom.

But this little weasel of a lord, whose titles and riches were impeccable - ghastly impeccable -, whose address was both an insult and a caress, whose manners unsettled you because they never changed – it was he who Oberyn preferred.

“Be careful, Lord Baelish. A future king and queen shall soon dine under your roof. Should anything happen to _them_ , you will wish you had sent the girl away.”

* * *

 

She liked this little place under his desk. She had come into his study because the rest of the house, the rest of the corners had all been cleaned.

This room, however, though polished and gleaming, was full of disarray, of secret thoughts and ink and scattered minds. The papers seemed to want to fly in madness. Little dust figures danced and melted in the sun's thin rays. The windows were covered.

She sat in the dark, touching the place on the floor where his feet would have stood.

And then, quite suddenly, they were there.

His soft boots.

He had sat down. He was writing. He had not noticed she was under his desk. Had he?

Sansa heard him hum softly under his breath. He thought himself alone. Men only sing when they are alone.

Sansa hugged her knees to her chest and listened to the scratch of his quill, the way it seemed to echo his humming, like a hollow drum.

She put her head down on his boots.

Petyr's sharp intake of breath did not startle or stop her. She moved her head back and forth. Her hair tickled the leather. She sighed and her breath warmed his toes.

There was only silence for a time.

“What are you doing down there?” he asked, at length.

“Please, my Lord, don't let them take me.”

“Alayne -”

“Don't let them.”

“Get up, Alayne.”

“No. I like it here. I like to lie down at your feet.”

“They _won't_ take you away. I've seen to it. Now come out. Come out.”

“Please, don't let _him_ take me either.”

There was a pause.

“He won't hurt you -”

Sansa gave a sharp cry. “You must not let him!”

Petyr suddenly bent down and grabbed a fistful of her hair. He yanked her up without ceremony.

She did not put up a fight.

She gasped when he tugged. It was still that soft tug from their first meeting. She was looking at his boots.

“I told you, I told you _twice_ , why do you soil your dress? Why do you bend down when I want you to stand tall? Why?”

“Because I _am_ standing tall.”

Petyr gave a soft sigh, so gentle, so imperceptible. She liked the way it escaped his lips and descended into a melody. How did he do that? 

“I have no choice. You have done this to yourself, you foolish, foolish -”

_Girl._

But he did not say it, because Sansa had grabbed the collar of his doublet and was twisting it under her fingers.

“Please. I have never done _anything,_ my Lord. Everything, everything was done to _me_.”

“He won't do much harm. I will make sure of that. But you must obey him. This once.”

“Why?”

“Because I want you to.”

Sansa let go of his doublet. She looked up at him and her glance was at once stone and steel.

“I do. I want you to,” he repeated.

“Will you be watching?”

The question shot out rapidly and rose into the air, like a stream that was gurgling underneath a shallow bridge.

“Watching,” he echoed, ghostly.

“If you are watching, I can do it.”

“But I -”

“Please. I can only do it if you watch.”

* * *

 

There was a hole in the wall. In every wall, truly, but only ever known by him. Each hole was another watchful eye. He showed her this hole. He made her look through it. Her eye was now his eye. He told her, now and forever, this hole must remain only theirs.

So, when she looked beyond the water pitcher, into the wallpaper, whose giant Dothraki horses galloped with foam on their lips, she saw her own eye there.

She was calm before the Prince. She did not see eyes in his face. True sight belonged to the wall and only the wall. 

Oberyn Martell slapped her four times. Each slap was followed by her body gliding dumbly on the marble floor, thrust out like a missed arrow. He made her lick the wounds of his stumped fingers.

She gagged and licked. He spat on her hair.

Then he said, “You know I hate this wretchedness. I do. I don't want any of it, but you force me. I promised Ellaria I would never see her cry. Northerners are supposed to be blood and flesh, like us. But you seem wicked to me. A wicked ragged doll.”

Sansa kept licking.

He untied his trousers.

“Will you bite this too if I put it in your mouth?”

Sansa looked at the wall. The eye was there, gleaming softly.

“Yes.”

Oberyn laughed bitterly.

“Let me see then.”

Sansa pulled back her hair. His spit slobbered down her back. She was not lying on the white ground, at least. And he was not the beast who had filled her nostrils with blood and made her taste every little drop of his cock.

But the smell was the same. Burnt snow.

She put her elbows on his knees and took his length in her palms, weighed it, turned it sideways.

“I have never seen one before,” she told him. The most she had said that evening. 

Oberyn scoffed. “None like this, you mean?”

“No. Yours is truly the first.” She looked at the wall. “Yours will always be the first.”

“They taught you to say that?”

Sansa kept looking at the wall. “When I taste it, I will taste you.”

Oberyn tipped her chin up so that her eyes looked upon his naked, eyeless face.

“You must not be a very good whore. They say it with more feeling.”

Sansa bowed her head and took him in her mouth.

She was in the dark place again, under his desk, looking at his boots. Lord Baelish was a cold pillar. She hid behind it to watch the clouds shift in the sky. In vain. He could not hide her. He could not offer her peace. He could not be anything else than those boots. But she wanted to put her head on the boots. She wanted to lie down at his feet. And this was a singular desire.

She closed her eyes and moved her tongue in little circles, like the way she used to make figures on a foggy window.

Oberyn gasped.

Her fingers deftly moved back his hilt. Her nails tickled and scratched, like Petyr's quill. The little dust figures danced in weak sunlight. 

Oberyn sank a hand in her hair. He tugged.

She stopped.

“No. Don't.”

“Why not, little doll?”

“Don't touch my hair.” It was only meant for those boots, those boots under his desk.

“I will touch whatever I like,” Oberyn demanded impatiently.

Sansa rose suddenly and his cock fell from her mouth stiffly.

She still had her underthings on. She ripped them apart, slowly, watching each thread unravel. She bunched them up in her fingers and squished them hard. Then she let them drop in a flurry on the floor.

"What are you doing?" But his voice did not bark or snap, like he meant to.

She sat over his lap and said, “Your stumps. Touch me with your stumps.”

She gripped his cock with one hand and guided his crippled hand to her mound.

His will protested, but when his stumps touched her, he was rendered powerless. Oberyn felt a strange tingling where his fingers used to be. Against his will, gritting his teeth, he let her move him. 

Sansa looked at the wall.

“That's why I bit your fingers. So when you reach inside a girl, you don't reach very far. You only caress. Never stab. Never hurt.”

Oberyn moaned. Waves of anger and lust washed over him. He felt adrift, lost in a sea of his own blood.

Sansa mewled quietly and stared at the wall.

“Isn't this better?” she asked and her voice was so childlike, so good-willed that Oberyn shuddered.

She looked at the wall. Stared at it, until she felt a warmth building in her stomach.

The eye was watching.

“Doesn't this feel – _whole_?”

Oberyn came into her hand. He howled.

She pushed her head back. “Please, forgive me, m'lord. For the pain I have caused you.”

She licked his stumps, tasting herself. Then she kissed them, those same feather kisses, before her teeth had rent his flesh.

Oberyn wrenched his hand away in terror. His face was a perfect picture of misery and disgust. He was disgusted with her. He was disgusted with himself. She could see he was meant for gentler things. He would not have looked at her through the wall. 

“I should put your hand on that table. Cut your fingers off. Just like you did to me. To my Ellaria.”

“But would you _bite_ them off?” Her voice sounded frightened although her face only showed weak curiosity, the kind a child exhibits when presented with a new toy.

Oberyn grabbed her waist with his good hand and pulled her down. He wanted to kiss her mouth. But at the last moment, he only kissed her forehead.

“Thank you, m'lord. For your blessing.”

Oberyn pulled away. He felt sick to his stomach.

“Foul. Foul creature,” he muttered under his breath.

Sansa picked up her dress, but her underthings remained a flurry on the floor. 

“Would you please lace me up with your good hand?”

“Get out!”

* * *

 

Petyr rested his head against the wall. He could feel the Dothraki horses on the other side, galloping over his forehead, slashing at his thoughts with their hooves.

_When I taste it, I will taste you._

Their eyes had been one.

No matter what happened now, they had seen together.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you kindly for all the comments and kudos. They inspire me to keep writing. So, how do you like the dark places so far?


	5. Chapter 5

“I think they will have you killed. One way or another. It will most likely take place during the engagement feast.”

The words were spoken without grace. His voice, steady, but stilted, had the effect of a teacher, reciting a lesson to his students. Sansa raised her hand over the flames. What would she learn from him?

The shadow of her fingers made the fire weak, pliant. It did not dare touch her skin. Chin on her knees, she looked like a guardian of all things unwanted.

“Did you hear me?”

“Yes.”

Petyr leant his back against the black armoire of his bed chamber. There was no safer place to speak in the house.

“And you have nothing to say, Alayne?”

“I’ve been bad. Everybody wants to hurt me,” she mumbled, darting two fingers inside the fire, pulling out just in time.

He was not pleased with her reply, judging from his scowl.

“Do not inflict this false speech on my ears. We are alone, after all. And you are no one’s victim.”

No, she certainly wasn’t. He had _seen_ her.

“But I will be,” she sniffed. “Tyrell or Martell, they're all the same. This is my lot, I suppose. I should have expected it.”

“Expected what?” he inquired sharply, feeling the bones on his back clench and release. He had never felt such a strange burden between his shoulders blades. He was carrying a new small world, made up of a Northern ghost girl who, perhaps, had never lived. It unnerved him, how calmly and yet how desperately his insides reacted.

“Alayne. You will answer me. What was your _intention_? What _has_ been your intention all this time?”

Sansa pulled away from the mischief of the flames and looked at the crumbling man in front of her. She had seen many lords in the bowels of misery, bent under the iron of defeat. Wretches, clinging to their titles to fill the gaping holes in their skin.

Lord Baelish should have been the same, knowing his proclivities. But his skin was opaque, concealed. His fall was an elevation. He never touched his whores. He never touched money. He never even touched himself. Everything was beyond him. He surveyed and sought, but never reached.

He was a key without a door.

She should have despised him, like the rest.

And yet, she wanted to lie down next to him, be his door.

Because inside him there was a timeless creature who wanted to feed on others with the same unforgiving innocence she possessed. 

Inside him, someone _saw_ her. Saw her and did not look away.

She had travelled for so long. She had taken so many souls. She had never imagined lusting after his.

“My intention was to please.”

Petyr rasped his knuckles against the wood. “You knew very well your actions would have consequences. Right from the start.”

His eyes had no dimension, no clear delineation. She could get lost.

“I wanted to do good. I always begin like that, but then something goes wrong…” she trailed off, pushing the soles of her feet against the warm floor. “And I can’t help myself. It’s my will, but it isn’t.”

“I cannot keep protecting you.”

Sansa nodded, pursing her lips, turning them white.

“No whore has cost me this much so far. No whore has made _me_ look bad.”

The more he spoke, the more she felt he would never let her go. 

“I hate a bad investment.”

“I…I understand.”

He raised an eyebrow in suspicion. “You understand? Days ago, you were begging me not to let Oberyn punish you.”

“He can’t hurt me anymore.”

“And you are not afraid?”

Sansa smiled through the tears that were now wetting her eyelashes.

“I must be.”

Petyr rubbed his hands, crushed his fingers together, tried to get rid of the nervous movement in his wrists.

“You look like a woman I once loved. I cannot fathom watching her die again, in _you_. But I will. And I won’t flinch. Because you are _not_ her, after all.”

Sansa tilted her head. The word “loved”, a past event, an ended torture. It made her eyes darken. “You don’t love me, my Lord.”

“No. I don’t.”

“You only possess me.”

“But you will be taken away,” he replied in a distant tone that resembled the dark places in the snow where she used to hide.

Sansa licked her lips. “You never got to enjoy your possession.”

“I suppose not.”

“You think I’m just a child. But I’m a good whore. I know…I know it seems unlikely. I look made for better things.”

He could not forget Oberyn’s face, his agony. He needed no reminder that she was an exotic bird, a collector’s item, a creature made for sick pleasures.

She seemed to guess his thoughts.

“The male form used to scare me, but now I like it. I’m happy when someone else is inside me. I can walk away, I can be alone, if someone else is there. My intention really _is_ to please. I’ve pleased many.”

Petyr travelled the short steps between them, grabbed her jaw and slapped her hard, once, twice.

“Why won’t you enjoy me?” she almost begged.

He slapped her a third time. The back of his hand was wet with tears.

She was sobbing now wildly, freely, her face contorted, enraged, her mouth howling.

Petyr was frightened and aroused. He hated her.

“Do you wish me to hurt you?” he asked, panting.

He grabbed her hair and pulled her up.

“Stop crying. I will not lose my temper with you.” But he was already pushing her up against the wall, strangling her, choking out the air from her windpipe. He slammed her head against the hard stone. Sansa spat and coughed.

“Maybe if I kill you myself, I will be spared watching them do it. After all, you are mine. No one else has the right to end you.”

Sansa could sense the timeless creature coming out of him, circling her with need.

“Y-Yes. Do it. P-please.”

He slipped a hand through her dress, parted her underthings and found her pulsing core. She was soaking wet. His hand was still wet from her tears.

“Gods, just – do – it," she whispered, strangled. 

She was flushed, barely breathing, choking, bruising, writhing.

He knocked her knees out of the way, dived in.

And then,

“The dead woman’s soul tasted like cold apples by the river.”

Petyr had already slipped a finger inside of her. He froze. Her muscles clenched around him.

He pushed her chin up and stared into her blue eyes.

“What did you say?”

Images of Riverrun, orchards, nightly walks, daily vigils. He grew sick and wanting.

“Her daughter’s soul tasted like ice and cherries.”

Her pink mouth was shaped like a gasping “O”, her voice a sweet, inexperienced moan.

Petyr wanted to let her go, wanted to cast her away into the flames and never lay a hand on her again. But instead he added a second digit and moved the tip of his fingers in slick spirals, until her eyes became frosted with pleasure.

A young girl on the cusps of maturity had him trapped in her release.

Their breaths mingled as their foreheads touched.

“Don’t be afraid. I won’t taste yours. But you want to taste mine,” she said, driving an arrow into his groins.

He should have listened to wise men talk about curses and demons. He should have called his guards. He should have ripped out her dark heart.

Instead, he flicked his fingers back and forth deeper inside of her, burying his head in the crook of her neck, letting his skin rest on hers.

“Alayne…” he whispered guiltily. Someone like her deserved to die. She would no longer haunt him, no longer drive him so innocently into madness. 

“Remember when you were a little boy…and your father sent you to the Fingers to make you stronger…and all you wanted was to drown yourself…”

Petyr tightened his grip around her neck and fastened his pace inside her.

“Now you finally can. Now you can drown yourself…”

Petyr wrenched his head away and growled.

Sansa came around his fingers.

“Drown yourself,” she rasped hoarsely and the words, tinged with lust and horror, came out as an order.

Petyr knelt down and his hands tore at her dress madly, trembling.

He grasped her thighs and brought his lips between her legs, abandoning himself, drinking greedily. His nostrils were full, his mouth was full, his eyes were full.

“Drown,” she repeated, closing her eyes.

His lungs were full.

He screamed into her heat.

She let her head fall against the wall and laughed a child’s laugh.

“It tastes like you, doesn’t it?” she asked.

* * *

 

His head had fallen in the pillows. He did not know when they landed on the bed. She was caressing his forehead, looming over him with benevolence. Her half-torn garment still hung on her hips.

“You ruined my dress.”

Petyr looked up at the ceiling. He couldn’t look into her eyes. If he even remotely caught a glance, he would be overwhelmed by the desire to sink himself inside her. Punish her. Adore her. Just _have_ her.

His cock throbbed, but he would not allow himself this final step. He had never slept with any one of his whores. He was not about to start with a child, even if she was ancient, even if she was everything he wanted.

“Now, you’ll have to burn it,” she added as an after-thought.  

Petyr breathed hard. She had remembered his words. 

“I cannot.”

“There’s no one else, my Lord,” she replied calmly, unbuttoning his doublet.

What she remembered best, however, was the shock of first hearing his voice in the Godswood. She had recognized something in it older than his grey temples.

“ _Don't_ call me that. I cannot fight them for you. You know that. I was born and raised in their midst. I drink from their cup. I fill their treasuries. I sign their allegiances. I revel and I mock, but I belong with them. High Lords share the same fate in the end.”

She was about to slip her hand under his shirt, but he stopped her. He was not going to let her see the scar.

“No.”

“Please.”

She bent her mouth to the soft cotton and felt the raised skin of his cuts.

Petyr closed his eyes.

She raised the shirt and her cold cheek was suddenly pressing down on his scar.

He shuddered. No one had touched him there for years, decades really.

“The Gods were cruel,” she mumbled, moving her cheek softly against the mottled skin.

“ _I_ was stupid,” he replied.

"A fate all High Lords share?" she asked wryly.

He smirked a bitter smirk. 

Sansa inhaled. The skin was like leather, the hide of an animal. She licked, at first gently, then greedily down the length of his scar, running into each crevice, filling each little precipice.

Petyr was in agony. He wanted to cut her tongue. His hands were knotted in her tangled hair, pulling hard. The red threads were splayed all over his chest, hiding her face. He did not see her bite. He felt it. 

“Damned whore,” he whispered under his breath.

Her fingers danced nervously around his waist, never quite settling anywhere. Her body was moulded to him, her hips against his groin. She was clumsily claiming friction, but she was too shy to let her hands wander to his breeches. 

_Too shy… Child and mistress in the same breath. Impossible.  
_

“I cannot fight them,” he repeated, his chest heaving with pain.

Sansa lifted her head. She was on top of him. Her saliva had left patterns on his skin, deeper than any scar.

“We’re not going to fight them,” she spoke serenely, arching into his lap in a torturous, artless motion.

“We’re going to fuck them.”

Petyr was not lost. He could have wrenched himself away still. He could have refused her intoxicating offer. _Still_.

But instead, he slipped a hand around her nape and pulled her down roughly.

She was thrown on the bed. Her body under his.

He was her servant.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> well, that was an eventful chapter, wasn't it? (Lady Macbeth would agree). Thank you for your comments and kudos!

**Author's Note:**

> My contribution to Petyr/Sansa week. This will be more than one chapter. Also, you have to thank tumblr user emperorirene for the idea.


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